


Avowal

by unwindmyself



Series: curious shapes shift in the dark [22]
Category: True Blood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Gen, Internal Monologue, Reconnaissance, Vampire Politics, Vampire Turning, agency and choices!, or a discussion thereof
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-01-04
Packaged: 2018-01-07 10:17:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwindmyself/pseuds/unwindmyself
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It hadn't been in Eric's plans to kidnap the governor's precious (not so) little girl, but maybe because she's tired of things just happening to her without her having any say-so, Willa uses it as a jumping-off point to take her own fate into (more or less) her hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Avowal

**Author's Note:**

> Part five, "A Window Opens."

Truman Burrell, current governor of Louisiana, is sequestered in his grand old former plantation home of a gubernatorial headquarters with all manner of guards posted at strategic locations around the perimeter.

This doesn’t come as a surprise to Eric.  He wasn’t so naïve as to not expect it.

(Except he _was_ naïve, a little bit, that’s what Nora had said.  It’s what his sister always says: he acts before he thinks, he’s impulsive and this is no different, he’s a fool to go in alone and without some sort of plan.  _I have a plan_ , he’d insisted, because insofar as he planned to go there and do something, he did.  _What_ , she’d retorted, _have you got one of your old battle axes lying around, you’re going to storm in and chop the heads off your enemies?_

He loves his sister, he really does, he always has and he always will, but no matter how old she gets, she will always be an _enfant terrible_.)

He’s good at staying unnoticed, so for now that’s what he’s doing, casing the grounds and weighing his options.  He’ll use force if necessary, glamour the guards, get into the building, speak to Burrell and glamour him, too.  It’s not that he doesn’t think that they’d be able to manage a more political and morally sound solution, it’s just that they’re in a hurry and they have other concerns, too.

( _It all goes together_ , Nora had hissed, _the governor’s getting away with this because of what the Authority did and it will just get worse if we let Billith go unchecked._ Eric sighed because it wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard her say before and then retorted that _this is a smaller-scale problem, sister, once it’s taken care of the rest will be easier to handle, too_.)

It’s not ideal, but it can be done, and like Nora pointed out, he can always charge in like some sort of antihero.

 

* * *

 

Willa Burrell, only daughter of the current governor of Louisiana, is under lock and freaking key in her father’s gubernatorial headquarters and she is sick and tired of it.

Like, she hasn’t even left the house in three days, and then it was with a security guard escort and it was only to run errands for a few hours.  She’s seriously wondering why she took her father’s advice to go on a leave of absence from college until all these “vampire shenanigans” (as her roommate Mallory put it in mock of the honorable governor) cool down and she stops being a target, a way to get to him.  (Except she knows.  His advice is usually a firm order that’s phrased very diplomatically but can’t be ignored.)

“I don’t know why you still listen to him,” Mallory had said.  “He’s kind of an ass.”

“He’s my dad,” Willa sighed.  “He’s an ass, yeah, but he cares about me and I don’t wanna let him down.”

“Why not?” Mallory countered.  “If it’s a money thing, you’re a smart girl, you can work it out.”

“It’s not,” Willa frowned.  “I just… I’m all he’s got now.”  Even if she doesn’t really _like_ him, she sort of has to love him, right? 

“He’s got the fucking state of Louisiana,” Mallory pointed out.

“It’s not the same!” Willa exclaimed.

“He’s also got that racist blonde fuckbuddy of his, doesn’t he?” Mallory added.

“Sarah doesn’t count,” Willa said.  “That’s… not the same, either.”

And back and forth and back and forth and now here she is, getting emails from Mallory twice a week about campus gossip so she doesn’t get too out of the loop and interning because it gives her something to do (and “took time off to intern in the governor’s office” is better on a resume or whatever than “took time off to appease a paranoid father,” even if said father is the governor in question and it smacks of nepotism).

Except it’s really just playing, because her dad’s not letting her do much more than push papers.  She’s not allowed in when he’s actually talking to most of his advisers (she still hears stuff, though, and sees it on those documents she’s toting around) and she doesn’t _want_ to be around when he’s talking to Sarah (she’s still not sure if her dad is using Sarah to feel cooler and younger or if Sarah is using her dad to get money or power or something or if, on the off-chance, they’re actually as happy together as they pretend, but she’s betting it’s not the latter) so she’s not doing much more than she did at her job in the university library, honestly, and she’s over it.

It’s late enough at night that she should probably be tucked in bed like a good girl (ugh) and, like, reading one of the really dry political tomes her dad loaned her (because he still hasn’t gotten over the fact that she’s majoring in English literature and not political science or business “or something useful”) or if she’s feeling frivolous, the Philippa Gregory novel that one of the other girls down her hall at school loaned her.  But she can’t even concentrate on the dubiously-accurate Tudor era romances, so she knows that means she just needs to go out.

None of the guards are going to care if she just sits in the back garden for a while.  It’s still a little rebellious because even though her dressing gown covers more of her than the dress she was wearing during the day did, her dad very well might yell at her for being out where anyone could see in little better than her lingerie; he’d see it as a scandal but she sees it more as a Romantic kind of gesture, kind of like the prequel to one of those Ophelia paintings by Waterhouse or something.  Except she’s not going to go drown herself in a lake.

 

* * *

 

Eric was prepared to deal with and/or kill any number of security guards when he snuck around to the back of the mansion, but he’s pretty sure he’s going soft, because he wasn’t expecting to have to deal with a teenage girl in her nightgown, kicking her feet against the base of the fountain she’s sitting on and listening to her iPod play something with female voices and harmonies, maybe Nora would know it (she’s always had more “indie” taste, even before that was really a known concept) but he very much doesn’t, some overlarge pink DJ headphones around her neck.

Distracted as she is, she’s easy to sneak up on, but when she does notice the strange, very tall, and _very_ handsome man approaching her, her jaw drops, her eyes go wide, her arms cross defensively over her chest as if that could protect her.

“You must be the governor’s daughter,” he says.  “I can’t imagine there would be too many other girls hanging around his headquarters in their pajamas.”

She juts out her chin defensively.  “Who the hell are you?” she asks, though it comes out sounding nervous, like she’s not entirely used to standing up for herself.  It’s as good as a yes.

They’re apparently going to cut right to the chase.  “A concerned citizen,” Eric drawls, raising an eyebrow and letting his fangs pop for dramatic effect.  He kneels in front of her very seriously like he’s about to play out a proposal in some scene for a high school theatre class and meets her eyes, slipping into a glamour.  “And you’re going to take me to speak to your father.  Now.”

“He’s busy,” she says, all dazed.

“Whatever he’s doing can wait.”

“He won’t wanna talk to you,” she murmurs, the slightest edge creeping into her voice though her expression stays blank.  “You’re a vampire, and he doesn’t deal with vampires.  Y’all don’t count the same way to him.”

He raises an eyebrow, but before he can ask another question of her, a security guard’s voice from around the side of the house shouts, “Who’s there?  Step away from Miss Burrell.”

The footsteps of at least three men are approaching fast, but Eric is thinking on his feet and the best thing he comes up with is to lean close to whisper to the girl, even though she’ll agree because of the glamour, “Trust me, Miss Burrell.”

And before the guards reach them, he’s picked her up and whisked her off, leaving only her dainty little white satin boudoir slippers in their wake.

 

* * *

 

When Willa comes to, she’s seated on a dock, her gown hiked up around her lap, her feet dipping into the water.  Strangely enough, even though she’s been kidnapped she’s got her iPod, and it hasn’t stopped playing; the fact that she’s God knows where and still has First Aid Kit singing at least near her ears about the wills of the river is kind of cool but it’s also kind of freaky, although this looks more like a lake than a river (which is freaky in a different way, considering her earlier wistful imaginings).

“Where are we?” she asks, because she knows without having to look that the vampire who did this is next to her.  It’s not like she can hear his breathing or something like she’d be able to if he was a human, but she can still tell.

“Some state park,” he drawls.  His feet aren’t anywhere near the water.  He’s too cool for that.  Also, he actually has shoes on.  “Excuse me.  _Wildlife management area._ ”

“Oh,” she says.  “Are you going to kill me?”

Well, that’s the logical conclusion.

“What’s your name?” he asks instead of answering.

“Willa,” she says.  “Willa Christina Burrell.”

“Well, Willa Christina Burrell,” he says.  “I’m Eric Northman.”

“I’ve heard of you!” she exclaims.  “You run that vampire bar in Shreveport.”

“Temporarily closed, but yes, that’s me,” he says.

“My roommate’s older sister lives in Shreveport,” Willa continues eagerly.  “She’s been there a couple times.  But you’re all important and running the place, so you probably never met her.”

“I’d ask who she is, but I probably still wouldn’t remember even if we had met,” he says, shrugging.  He’s sort of starting to wonder why he broke the glamour – he’s out of practice small-talking humans – but he’d rather have her clear-headed when he interrogates her, which seems like the thing to do.

She’s quiet for a minute, staring at the ripples she’s making in the water, before she asks, “Why did you bring me here?  You haven’t said.”

“It was run with you or stay and tussle with those mall cops,” he tells her.  “I figured while we’re out here that we could have a talk about your father’s agenda.  If he won’t listen to me like you claimed – which I doubt, I can be very persuasive – maybe he’ll listen to you.”

“Fat chance,” she scoffs.  “I’m still a kid in his eyes, and I’m hardly a politician.  Besides, he’s in it way deeper than what’s on the news, he’s not gonna back out just ‘cause I said pretty please.”

“Deeper?”

“Well, the vampires that they’ve been arresting aren’t going to jail,” she explains.  “He built some sorta camp for them, like – well, I guess it’s jail of a kind, but it’s messed up.  They’re doin’ experiments so they can figure out how to hurt y’all better.”

“You sound like you don’t approve,” he comments.

“Hell no, I don’t approve,” she exclaims.  “He’s makin’ it seem like it’s ‘cause of all the killings that have been goin’ on lately, but he’s just been waiting for a chance to do this for years.  He never liked that y’all came out, I mean I’m sure you’ve heard all the ‘vampires are gonna corrupt society with their deviant ways’ stuff before, but that’s him to the letter.  Always has been.  And it’s wrong.  Vampires are people too.”

“We were people, anyway,” he chuckles.

“Are you gonna kill _him_ , then?” she asks.

“I’m going to do whatever I have to to protect my kind,” Eric declares.

“You want help?” Willa says suddenly.  “I mean, I’m your best shot at getting into that place and stopping all this, probably.”

He raises an eyebrow.  “I don’t think dragging a teenage human is a great idea,” he points out.

“I’m twenty!” she exclaims.  “Next month, anyway.  And…”

Oh God is she really about to make this offer?  Throw away her human life to help some gorgeous vampire she just met destroy and possibly murder her dad?  Except she’s not _throwing it away_ , she’s – she’s just trading it for something else.

“I know that hesitation,” he says warily.  “And I don’t think _you_ know what you’re asking.”

“Actually, I do,” she says, and although she hadn’t thought about this until _right now_ , she does and she’s… she’s okay with it.  Somehow being a vampire sounds way better than… whatever she’s destined for, if there is such a thing as destiny (with her dad, there sort of is).  Finishing her undergrad, marrying one of the guys in her dad’s freaking retinue or whatever, having kids and using that English degree to, like, make up particularly convincing bedtime stories?

Suddenly that just seems like she can’t get away from it fast enough.  And it’s not like she doesn’t realize there are other alternatives, but it’s not like she doesn’t genuinely also just want to help change all her dad’s stupid bigoted crap, and this seems like the best way to do that.

Eric seems to be thinking it all over, too, because after what seems like forever, he says, “You know it’s not as romantic as the movies make it out to be.”

“I know,” Willa retorts stubbornly.  “I’ve heard at least some of what my dad and his scientist buddies have figured out.  I know it’s rough.  So is bein’ a person, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“And you know that you’re asking something sacred of me,” he continues.

“I’m not an idiot,” she snaps.  “I get that this isn’t a game, okay?  But I wanna help, and I don’t wanna be dead weight.  Actually, no.  I’m _going_ to help, and I _will not_ be dead weight.”

“And then what?” he asks.  “After you help us.”

“Well, I guess we deal with that later,” she shrugs.  “I’ll split if you don’t wanna put up with me.  I’d think of something.  Go to California, see my mom.  She’d be cool about it, she’s dating a vampire.”

“If I turn you,” he says very firmly, “I will not abandon you.  Period.”

“Then I guess the only question is if you’re up for it,” she chirps.  “I get that I’m asking you to take on a lot, but really, it’s a win-win.  You get help dealing with my douchebag dad, I get a… uhm.”  She snickers behind her hand.  “A whole new world opened up to me.”

He weighs the options for a minute.  Go in without the girl, run risks, possibly ruin everything; turn the girl and bring her along, run slightly better odds, possibly save everything.  There are no certainties.  Furthermore, Pam is going to be fucking pissed.  But this is the choice that makes the most sense.

“Well, Willa Christina Burrell,” he says, smiling a tiny bit in spite of himself as he rises to his feet and offers her a hand up.  “You drive a hard bargain.”


End file.
